Music

Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment Sued for Backpay by Former Intern

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A woman who interned for Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment is filing a class action suit against the company claiming she is owed backpay.

The suit, filed in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday (Aug. 20), claims that Bad Boy, along with its parent company Universal Music Group, violated minimum-wage laws by using interns as regular employees, according to the New York Daily News.

In court filings, Rashida Salaam says while interning for the company from January 2012 to May 2012, she received no training and performed work that paid employees could have otherwise done, such as answering phones, getting coffee, booking trips for Diddy and preparing expense reports. Diddy himself is not personally named in the suit because as Salaam states, he did not manage her personally.

“I’m not suing for any type of animosity,” said the 26-year-old Brooklyn woman. “I have no animosity against Bad Boy. But I was taken advantage of as far as wages go. I was naive.”

Though Salaam agreed to be classified as an unpaid intern or trainee, her lawyer says a worker has the “right to make a claim for unpaid wages” and that when an interns receives no wages “the primary recipient of the benefits should be the intern — not the company.”

Salaam’s lawsuit seeks back wages plus interest for the hours that she and her peers worked. The amount will be determined at trial.